Theft of retail items in retail stores is a major concern for most retailers. Retail items that are often the targets of shoplifters include, for example, over-the-counter retail products (hereinafter OTC products), which may include analgesics, cough and/or cold medications, razors, razor blades, camera film, batteries, videos, DVDs, smoking cessation products, infant formula and/or the like. For several reasons, preventing theft of these retail items and/or OTC products is often a priority for retailers and/or employees of the retailers. Retailers often provide shelving, security devices and/or other security measures that sometimes deter theft of these retail items and/or OTC products while granting limited access to customers that desire purchasing the retail items and/or OTC products.
Theft has become particularly problematic for certain retail items, such as, for example, cough and/or cold medications, razors, razor blades, infant formula and/or the like. Traditionally, these retail items are removed from shelves and are often placed behind store counters and/or securely stored under lock and key, only accessible by one or more employees of the retailers. This security approach is often effective in preventing theft of these retail items; however, such security approach often presents subsequent problems associated with access and availability of these retail items to customers desiring to purchase the retail items. For example, customers may often be deterred by having to request access to the retail items by an employee, in order to purchase the retail items. Further, such procedures require that the employee interrupt typical and usual duties in order to fulfill requests of the customers. Moreover, available space behind store counters for securely storing the retail items may be limited and/or non-existent. As a result, inventories of these retail articles may be at lower amounts than anticipated by customers which may undesirably lead to unavailability of the retail articles in times of need.
The systems and methods set forth in the present disclosure securely store, display and dispense retail articles in such a manner that effectively deters theft of the retail articles while also maintaining limited accessibility to the retail articles by customers.\